News

Report from Wajibu Wetu!

23. August, 2016

New furniture, electricity, freezer, security doors, plumbing and more through the Help Every Day donation

We received the detailed report below from Rob de Jong who is a United Nations Officer working closely with the development of the Wajibu Wetu orphanage. The pictures to the left show a number of the specific items that have been purchased and implemented with the donation of Help Every Day!

“Wajibu Wetu is an orphanage in Nairobi, Kenya, that is fully supported by private donations. It is formally registered and run by a couple, George and Jane Githioma. Authorities bring the children to the orphanage when children are found without parents or in other circumstances when there is nobody to take care of them. Children stay in the “Wajibu Wetu family”, all go to school and several have now graduated and found jobs.

In the past the orphanage was renting a small piece of land with poor quality of housing (made of gall sheet). Children could not even play outside and facilities were poor. A few years ago a German support group bought a piece of land for them, with the intention for the orphanage to build a new home and to able to grow food so they could feed themselves.

A group of UN staff members in Nairobi took it upon themselves to build a new home on the new land. And after a local school decided to demolish one of its buildings, it was donated to the orphanage and rebuild on their land as the new Wajibu Wetu home. The children now live a beautiful new home, with a big garden in which they grow food, and hold some cows and chickens. They visit schools in the local neighborhood.

However there were no funds for internal decorations. Even though many people donated beds and blankets etc, the building was still merely undecorated.

Here the Help Every Day group came to the rescue with a fantastic donation of EUR 5.038. George and Jesse, together with the UN staff made a plan to maximize this donation. Over the past months the Help Every Day donation has been used to:

Make the electric connection between main power lines and the house

Connect the toilets in the house with a septic tank

Buy dinner tables and chairs

Buy a big freezer – to allow them to freeze food after harvest – it is now full of peas and tomatoes!

Build a shade net over the verandah so that we can sit outside

Install gutters and buy water tanks so that we can harvest rain water that we can use for the garden during the dry season

Build lockers for the children in the bedrooms so they have a place to keep their private belongings

Put security grills for the windows and doors

Buy curtain rods for the windows

Basically the donation has helped to decorate the house almost completely. We used the funds very carefully, looking for bargains, using local labor and doing a lot of the work ourselves, so as to maximize your kind donation. We still have some funds left that we will use to complete the security bars, cover the floor of the second floor bedrooms, and hopefully buy some wood to build some outside picnic tables for under the verandah. Find attached some pictures that show the items.

Last weekend I visited the orphanage, and George, the manager, asked me to sincerely thank you for your fantastic donation. He said that it really was essential in changing a beautiful but empty house into their new warm new home today. George asked me to pass on his and all the children thanks to all of you.

Once all funds have been spent we will provide you with a detailed financial report and all invoices. George, Jane and the Children will also send you a personal thank you letter.